a virtual polar dip!

april fools!!

you may recall seeing a few MOC polar dip goap! posts in the past--you may not. with the schools on remote learning with plenty of social distance between students, this year's plunge is a virtual one. more accurately, a replay, but that sounds sorta lame.

speaking of lame, if i had started this a week ago, i could have had a lot more pics scanned in. sorry--i will add some later. for now, i have two years 2016 and 2018--first back to april 1st, 2016 and a no-ice year...it was a run-in. my favorite series was of olivia, the last one in, and the first one out!



not bad for her first april above the mason dixon line. the group that year was small but brave hearted--it is a lot harder to run in than jump through a hole in the ice.

two years later, march 31, 2018, we had plenty of ice. a small crew gathered to cut the hole, drilling and sawing through about 2 feet! it's always a little dicy removing the huge blocks, hooking on with a strap and pulling for all you are worth. from the looks of his left pant leg, eben must have taken an early dip.

i do have a series from 2015 of an attempt to haul out a rather large 'berg'. there is some muscle there but since it doesn't seem to come all the way out, i am assuming i had to stow the camera and help.



back to 2018, the 1st of april was another blue bird day, but really windy (stay tuned for some after dip fun.) our camera person--thanks ethan (i think because there are no pictures of him dipping)--caught some sweet series, this time. olivia, now after her third winter, was back and raring to go.



doesn't it look a lot easier than running in? we also had a kearsarge, ski buddy come over for a dip.



the next batch comes in twos, both first time 'jumpers'--well, kerrigan jumped, dirk's vert was only about a half an inch.



another april fools, another hearty and brave crew.



oh, and after folks got some dry clothes on, john and justin attached skis to their boots and did a little leijahiihto, as i once heard it called in finnish.








it was an excellent day for a dip, and plenty windy for kite skiing too! all in all, what's not to love about going outside and playing! and though there is no tell tale splash in this particular picture, i actually did get a little wet. april fools!!

bonus! a snow day and i could take off work!!

it started snowing monday as i was finishing up a couple of computer images. craig stopped by--at an appropriate social distance--and asked how much did i think we would get. i committed to 5 inches, with "anything more would be a gift from the goddesses! and i won't be coming into work."

it came down hard all evening and by the time we went up to bed, there was a good pile on top of the vehicles. we had our five inches already--and it was still snowing. it was also in the upper 20°s, and supposedly going to stay there. that meant i would be skiing in the morning. thank you goddesses!

tuesday: the plow went by around 3:30a and woke me. as i lay waiting for its return trip, i heard a telltale creeeck of the snow pack on the roof, releasing tension as it got ready to slide. they were coming only one or two every five minutes or so when the plow came back, around 4:00a. there was no way i was falling back to sleep.

i had an early breakfast with tea, while finishing up and posting a late, monday's 'word for the week' in ttyol. as soon as it got light enough, i put on my snow bibs and went out to shovel. at some point, i was surprised by pam, sticking her head out the door, "skip's on the phone." we had planned to meet up at cardigan 9:30~ish, after he remotely met with his students. his principal had called all that off with the announcement, "it's a luddite day!"--the coronavirus school shutdown equivalent of a snow day. that meant we were going up early.

we got at least a half-a-foot down in the 'low' lands which usually meant more up high. it would be nice to get first tracks. i got my skis ready and was out the door before 8:00a. we were the first two there and being a little earlier than skip, i got three 'bottom' runs in as he geared up. there was plenty of snow--i never saw those two little 'doggie bags'--even on that section where the base had completely melted. after we rounded the first corner, our poles never even hit solid.



it was wet~ish and stick~ish enough that we left skins in our packs and went sliding along fairly quickly. skip did some herringboning on the steep in the first ski trail section. my scales were holding pretty well, even clumping some. i took the saw out when we got into the second section and we trimmed out a prominent spine running along the brook. if we remembered to turn into the woods, we could avoid the big ditch.

when we got back on the main trail, we crossed a set of boot tracks with dog prints. while we were cutting, a snow boarder and his dog got up above us. skip thought he recognized him. we were tracking the ski sections and trimming things as we went, so he got well ahead of us. close to the waterfall section, he came sliding down. as he slowly went by skip asked how the conditions were, he admitted, "a bit slow."

we kept on going up and saw where he had turned at the top of the fourth section. we were hoping to top out at the cornice on the upper end of the chute. interestingly, the snow seemed to be less deep up high. while we crossed over to the east side on the hurricane trail, the sun was trying to break through and making it even stickier--way stickier. that short section also had some wicked whoop-de-doo drifts that would be a blast skiing.



the cornice at the top of the chute stopped us. we tightened our boots, locked down our bindings, skip shortened his poles, and gave me a social distance smile. as i snapped the picture of our tracks i got pretty excited--according to skip, this definitely had potential to be "the best skiing ever!"

i never took the camera back out and stopped for only a few heart beats, once to saw out a couple of beech branches on that "prominent spine" that i had missed. skip waited above until i got out of the way and zipped through the fairly clear line.



the skiing was a delight. and as minute by minute it was getting warmer and warmer--read stickier and slower--we had gotten in and out in good time. 'go out and play!' early and often was working its magic and making us smile.





ps--having written about the woman "yelling and swearing" about social distancing in "recon up west ridge trail...", heard the state fish and game folk's "covid-19 response" discourage risky adventures in the mountains, and read several articles like outside online's "you probably shouldn't be backcountry..." i am well aware of avoiding elevated risk and will be changing my 'go out and play!' activities to less risky and local. keep smiling, be safe, and be well.

three days on town hill, and a recon up the west ridge trail on cardigan--with a birthday wish!

that's right, we were forecasted to get 6-8~ish inches of snow on monday evening! a couple of hikes up cardigan let me know that there was still plenty of base left, from tree-line down. that much snow would be great--probably even cover the dog shit!! in the meantime, town hill was right out our door.



friday: pam and i are hiking up town hill a lot in these days of social distancing. there is much comfort in stepping out the kitchen door and walking for miles without crossing paths with others. we did the short loop, past the truck and back on the porcupine trail. there was a section deeper in the woods, out of the sun, with a fair amount of snow left. i got pam to stop for a photo opp.



a pair of wellies and the bottoms of pam's poles give you an idea of what the rest of the trail is like--wet and leafy. it was warm enough to take off her jacket though, which probably meant closer to 50° than 40°. i never checked, but my t-shirt and sweater was plenty comfortable.





saturday: i had been hearing of a possible good amount of snow coming monday, so after breakfast i decided to run up the west ridge trail and scope out the remaining base after the warm day friday. i didn't think it would change much, but if it did i wanted to know where to not to deep carve a turn. plus it was sadie's birthday and i had a little penguin that wanted her send her a message--happy birthday sadila!

the coverage was still pretty good and certainly nothing 6~ish inches wouldn't cover enough to never notice. there were a few cars parked at the bottom, but hiking the ski trail, i saw nobody all the way up, and most of the way down. i ended up passing two parties, a bit surprised they didn't have micro-spikes and  wondered how far they would end up going? a cold night had frozen things up solid and it was slippery!




i was not surprised at the number of dogs going up the mtn. in my last post i complained about all the dog shit in the middle of the trail. i had removed two big piles up higher today already. but as i got to the last corner, i saw two tied up bags of poop set by the side of the road. my only hope was that the owners who left it were still hiking and would be picking it up on their way down. it made me mad enough to almost say something--almost.



when i got down to the gate, a group of college kids were rounding one side as i went around the other. an older woman was standing in the road "ripping them a new asshole" (as she informed her partner when i passed by) on the seriousness of social distancing. even though i was just thinking about telling the next dog owners to be sure and clean up after their pet, i was a little taken aback at her yelling and swearing. i threw my stuff into the truck and left that scene.

pam and i took the afternoon to walk the town hill loop again and this time i took a series of her on the big snowy section.



it was cold enough today to keep the jacket and hat on, though the wellies were still useful in the wet sections.



sunday: was another cold morning, but by the time we went out in the afternoon, it was getting close to freezing. we took the loop counter clockwise today so we hit the snow patch going the opposite way. i almost forgot to get a picture, but i managed to snap this one just before she walked off of it.


given we still had plenty of daylight left--note my shadow is not as long as pam's was in the series above--we decided to hike all the way to the marsh off bear pond road. i did a little cutting along the way, trimming back small trees bending into the trail. there is one section where the trees have really long, sharp thorns, and they always seem need cutting back. someday i will look them up and identify them--i don't think they are native.

the beaver pond at the bottom of the trail--just beyond the thorns--still had a skin of ice on it in a couple of places, way too thin to cross over. i looked for wood ducks on the open water out in the sun, but i think it's still a week or two early. the hike back went smoothly and we were coming down town hill with an hour of sunlight to spare.




these three day weekends, with our backyard trails, are pretty sweet. it's enough to put a smile on a face, especially with snow in the forecast. who wouldn't want to 'go outside and play!' with all those riches?

some "downtime" doing up-time

after writing this morning--check out 'talk to yourself out loud'--all about being way too busy working, i went up mt cardigan for a winter walk. it was still snowy and frozen the whole way. that, and being in the middle of a thursday, i had the mountain all to myself!

driving up to the winter parking lot, i figured there wouldn't be many cars. i smiled as i pulled in, the lone vehicle. after squeezing around the gate and the frozen piles of last weeks snow, i went about 100 yards before i stopped to put on micro-spikes. slipping on the ice was one concern, but mostly i was hoping to avoid the frequent piles of dog shit, not so well placed in and along the path. that did not make me smile!

once i got up to the summer lot, the frequency fell to every once in a while, but annoyingly, still right on the trail. it was also still very icy where the volume of hikers was high. the two pictures below are not too far along, looking ahead on the left, and behind on the right.



when i got to the south ridge cut off, the ice continued up west ridge, but looked snowy on the less traveled trail. i took two more pictures, again looking ahead and then behind, to show the difference.



i was thinking that heavy travel compacted the snow and when we had those warm days over the weekend, it helped make the usual trail nice and icy. that's not to say there wasn't ice in the usual spots on south ridge. i remember posting images of skip and i--this year and last--posing at the big flow at the bottom of where it gets really steep.

surprisingly, there was a lot of snow on the trail and not all that much ice on the flow. the snow stayed plentiful until i got atop the ridge and it came and went with the trees. it got thick again when i rounded the warden's cabin and stayed until i got up closer to the summit on the south facing rock.

coming at the summit from the south east, i realized something was weird, the wind was at my back. usually, like 9 times out of 10, the wind comes out of the northwest. this was exactly opposite. when i snuck around the tower to cut the wind i took a picture looking towards smarts mtn--off to the northwest.

it doesn't show too well, but it looked like the sun was trying to break through on the hills beyond the guy-line. no sun was headed my way so i packed the camera and headed down the west ridge trail.

no more than 20 yards downhill, i stopped and shook my head in disgust. i even got the camera out to take a picture of the spray painted "kind is cool" message on a large~ish boulder. 

the message is a few years old and fairly worn down--people have been wire brushing it periodically. sam evans-brown did a great episode, "leave no stone", on his wonderful show outside in, that includes a fresh picture. i don't always see the message, no matter, kindness may be cool, spray painting rocks in the mountains is f*cked up!

i was sad for a ways after that until i had to refocus when the mostly bare rock got really icy. i had to stop and put the micro-spikes back on. that helped in all but the sketchiest of spots with really hard ice. 

i made it down safe and until i got back to the dog shit i was smiling--again. most anybody would agree that even with graffiti and pet poo, it's always a joy to 'go outside and play!' 

ps--skip, there is plenty of base, top to bottom, if we get another good snow. after all, it is still march!